I am an international applicant to physics graduate program. And I have received two admissions recently:Physics@Stony Brook, PHD, TA: $17000/First year.Perimeter Scholars International (Theoretical Physics)@Primeter Institute, a Master degree from University of Waterloo, Fellowship.

I know stonybrook is a famous school, but PI also holds a good reputation in Canada. In addition, PSI is only a ten months taught program with some top faulty such as Dr. Philip Anderson from Princeton and Dr. Xiaogang Wen from MIT. But if I accepted there, I need to apply again next year

I am confused and the response deadline of PSI is near. Could you give me some advice please?

I've had to do some thinking about this myself, since I'm planning to apply to PI when I get to that point. My thought on it was that if I got into the absolute perfect Ph.D. program for me (still not 100% sure where that would be) then I might be willing to pass up going to PI, but I'd probably first contact the Ph.D. program and let them know that I was accepted to PI and see if it's possible for them to defer the admission, since it's only a 10-month program.

If I only got into safeties, or if after visiting the Ph.D. programs I wasn't 100% sure where I wanted to go, I wouldn't lock myself in - I'd go to PI. It's just such a unique program - sort of a "once in a lifetime" opportunity - and your application would look even better next year. But if you intend to re-apply to Stony Brook, I would definitely contact them and let them know what's going on; I don't know if they can defer admission offers at the grad level, but they definitely should know that you'll be applying again next year.

I'd be interested to know what sort of application (GPA, GRE score, research, etc.) it takes to get into PI if honeyclover or others wouldn't mind sharing.

Not being in the situation myself, I would go to Stony Brook. It is one of the schools that I would most like to go and I would be scared to lose the chance. However PI looks really cool and there are some less exciting PhD programs that I would pass on in favor of padding my application with the masters. Getting the chance to study at PI would be really cool.